Morocco is singled out for having done everything to hamper the Western Sahara conflict settlement plan before proceeding with its “reckless” act in El Guerguerat. This is what the Mauritanian expert on Sahelo-Saharan affairs, Souleiman El Chikh Hamdi, thinks, who assured that “Mauritania will surely not get bogged down in Moroccan political maneuvers”, if the war were to intensify in the region. Even if he recognizes that Mauritania is exposed from time to time to hostile campaigns on the part of Morocco.
After more than 45 years of conflict and negotiations, Western Sahara was recently recognized as Moroccan territory by the American administration under Donald Trump, shortly before his departure from the White House. Except that the Polisario Front, which enjoys the unwavering support of Algeria, does not hear it that way. Since then, the diplomatic battle has raged between the various antagonists. In an interview with the SH24H site , published on Saturday, the Mauritanian expert on Sahelo-Saharan affairs, Souleiman El Chikh Hamdi, maintained that “Morocco has remained stuck in the conflict in Western Sahara, and this question (Sahrawi) will be the cause of the end of his regime ”.
Souleiman El Chikh Hamdi assured that the Mauritanians “are convinced” that the completion of the process of decolonization of Western Sahara, “will form an impenetrable barrier against the Moroccan expansionist ambitions” in the region. This conviction, according to him, “enjoys the support of the majority of popular and official trends in Mauritania”. While showing how Morocco nourished its expansionist ideas, since the demands of the Istiqlal Party, and the outputs of certain Moroccan politicians in this regard, Souleiman El Chikh Hamdi, declared that “Mauritania is exposed, from time to time, to hostile campaigns on the part of Morocco ”.
Speaking on the latest developments in the region, Souleiman El Chikh Hamdi explained that “the current situation has brought us back to square one, that is to say to war, the transgression of the settlement plan which has stagnated. from its earliest days, starting with the census operation, the identification, the ceasefire, the deterioration of human rights and the failure to create the conditions necessary for the organization of a referendum self-determination (in Western Sahara) ”.
“Morocco has done everything to hinder the work of the United Nations, in particular because of French support, in flagrant violation of UN resolutions until it proceeds, on November 13, 2020, to its” reckless “act, that of military aggression against Sahrawi civilians, in the buffer zone of El Guerguerat (southwest of Western Sahara). However, is the result of his (Morocco) “political stupidity” which resulted in the violation of the UN ceasefire, 30 years old, “said Souleiman El Chikh Hamdi.
Still according to Souleiman El Chikh Hamdi, “the Mauritanian position concerning the Sahrawi question has remained constant, because the Mauritanian-Sahrawi relations are anchored in history, on the social, economic and political level. The two peoples make it one, but in two states ”. Noting, in this regard, that the end of the war between the two brotherly peoples, in 1978, and the withdrawal of Mauritania from this “unjust” episode, was “a healthy position”, but the most solid position (of the Mauritania) was the recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1984 (SADR) ”.
He also mentioned that “Morocco knows full well that Mauritania has endured a lot due to the difficult circumstances and positions that the country has had to adopt in order to maintain a position of positive neutrality”.
